


All of my memories keep you near

by EnlacingLines



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Past Lives, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Prompt Fic, Sort Of, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 10:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18658588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnlacingLines/pseuds/EnlacingLines
Summary: Keith’s had ghosts in his head for as long as he can remember. He calls them ghosts as it’s the best word he can think of. They aren’t voices, nothing concrete; more feelings and flashes of things which appear within his life.A reincarnation Klance story.





	All of my memories keep you near

**Author's Note:**

> I was given the prompt of a reincarnation fic on my [Tumblr](http://enlacinglineswrites.tumblr.com) by [gigili-jiggly](http://gigili-jiggly.tumblr.com); whose art is fantastic, so please go check out and support their work! 
> 
> This is the story I posted, so I've now added it on here too for those who would prefer to read on A03. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Keith charges, sword bared, and swipes at the training bot. One, two, three strikes, all parried and he resets; a change of stance and off once again. 

 

No time to think, no time to ponder. Just the rush and focus of battle, all adrenaline and concentration, muscle tense and mind occupied. It helps now, when he cannot sleep, when he tries to rest and his head is full to bursting. 

 

Keith has a head full of ghosts and tonight they are loud. 

 

Two nights have passed since Lance emerged from a healing pod. Four nights since Keith carried his broken and bleeding body over his shoulder, into his lion and into the castle. Four nights since Lance stopped breathing in his arms and Keith was sure, so very sure he was witnessing his last moments. 

 

He strikes wide, almost trips but turns it into a spin; manages a hit that only gives a glancing blow. He growls. This fight has been going too long and yet he is still thinking of Lance, still lost in the memory of his wet, drowning laugh as he smiled up at Keith in the cockpit, teeth stained garnet. 

 

_ Why do you always die in my arms? _

 

It’s the thought that does it, a tendril of mist said in another voice, yet still his own. He screams, lunges forward in a kick spin, parries once with his blade and then slices clean through the hologram. 

 

“End training sequence,” he says, out of breath, the sentinel vanishing just as he collapses onto his sword, weary in mind and bones. 

 

It takes him a while afterward to compose himself. He exits the room limping, hamstrings screaming with each step and flashes of Lance’s death pursuing. Moments of what he assumes could have been; a hand reaching out, pleading hazy eyes, blood, always blood and a devastating nothingness that surrounds them. 

 

The memory is wrong though, a phantom’s trick. So he shakes it away, showering and then making his way to the kitchen, not hungry but just drained, existing on sheer stubbornness at this point. Keith needs sleep more than food, but one is easier to come by, even at this late hour. 

 

He is surprised, therefore to find someone already there. Lance looks up at his entrance, phone in hand and a plate of leftovers before him. 

 

For a moment Keith thinks he sees him smile and beckon him over, but his tiredness is obviously affecting him for what’s really in place is simply a confused frown. 

 

“What are you doing here, it’s like, 4AM? Well, castle 4AM. Who knows what time system we go by now.” 

 

Keith beelines for the fridge, pulls out a water pouch and the other remaining portion of leftovers. He closes the door, grabs a spoon and leans by the fridge to eat. Lance watches all the movements, eyebrow raised. 

 

“I’m hungry,” Keith says. Lance groans. 

 

“Fine, whatever, keep your secrets. This is why we sucked at training today, you know. Your communication issues.” 

 

“We sucked because you decided show off instead of following the plan,” Keith says, taking another bite, watching as Lance’s hackles rise, much like a cat.  

 

“I was not showing off, I had a better plan if you’d bothered to listen to me!” Lance says, voice carrying, pointing his spoon at Keith, who continues to eat. 

 

Keith shakes his head. “Maybe, but then you stared at Allura too long and tripped over you-”

 

“Okay! Alright, you’re superior.” 

 

Keith sighs and places his empty bowl in the sink. He walks over to sit opposite Lance, who is now determinedly staring at his phone and pretending Keith doesn’t exist. Keith’s temples start to ache, the heavy weight of sleep pushing at him but he holds on. While it’s fun to rile Lance, he’s noticed how he tends to put himself down too much, plays the part of the joker when really at times he suffers more than any of them. He never wants to genuinely hurt Lance, just something about their interactions is familiar and comforting. But sometimes Keith’s words are barbed, too many years defending himself from the world. 

 

“I’m not. And the plan was pretty good. Just...next time focus on it, not impressing the Princess?” he says, an olive branch given. 

 

“Who said it was for her?” Lance says, putting down his phone, voice soft and words a stream. 

 

“What?” Keith asks, unsure he’s heard the mumble correctly. 

 

“Nothing. Man, you look exhausted, did you really need a snack that badly?” Lance says, peering at Keith as he does. 

 

Keith nods once, looks away, and doesn’t comment that a mix of memories of Lance being hurt and strange memories that are not quite memories have been keeping him awake. Too much to admit, and too much to explain. 

 

Lance doesn’t question further though and after a minute of silence, he picks up his phone again and starts to hum softly. It’s a strange melody, lilting yet solem, a song in the minor key with a changing, haunting flow that oddly makes Keith’s whole body melt as he follows it onwards, upwards and back down again. 

 

It’s soothing. Easy listening, and he feels his head empty for the first time in days. It’s just as he feels his eyes shutting down, his body tipping forward, the song loud in his ears that he thinks:

 

_ You’ve sung this to me before. _

 

* * *

 

Keith’s had ghosts in his head for as long as he can remember. He calls them ghosts as it’s the best word he can think of. They aren’t voices, nothing concrete; more feelings and flashes of things which appear within his life. 

 

The knowledge something is wrong, or something is right. Tiny recollections, a place that is different from what it should be: a house with the wrong colour front door, an office block where a park should be. People he already knows; he stole Shiro’s car for a reason, just knew he had to.

 

Other parts are stranger, more concrete. He can pull off fighting techniques he’s never tried before, complex motions his body knows how to do. Once as a child, he created a whole world so unique for a class story writing assignment his teacher insisted he must have plagiarized it from a book. 

 

Mostly the ghosts hover, a second part of himself appearing when something is amiss or right. A pull in one direction or another. Other times they roar, will not let him rest until he’s dedicated himself to finding the Blue lion or taking the Blade trial. Things he must do, has to do, for a reason he cannot explain. 

 

They are never quiet. Never, except for those moments before sleeping when Keith followed Lance’s tune into slumber. 

 

They fill his dreams that night though. A balcony lined in silver overlooking the sea, a sword in his hand and arms around his chest. Crying at a gravestone while wearing a dark green uniform. Another hand curving around his, both tied together with a white ribbon, the two touching a mirror’s surface, watching it ripple. Smiling at a couple’s wedding but feeling dead on the inside. Drinking from a cup lined with sapphires which vanishes as his lips touch, replaced by passing a man on the street whom he doesn’t know but feels he should. 

 

Ending in that white space, the hand, the eyes, blood pooling around his knees. 

 

_ I will find you again, even if it takes me a thousand lives. I will find you _ .

 

The ghost scream and splinter, but this time, he does not wake. 

 

He does only when he’s gently shaken by Allura a few hours later, asleep in the kitchen with a blue blanket over his shoulders. He pulls it tighter as he wanders back to his room; it smells like home even though it doesn’t belong to him. He’s too tired to think though, just wraps himself inside it further and collapses into sleep. 

 

* * *

 

The battle did not go well. He and Lance are the only ones awake, gravitating together as both crave company but neither wants to admit it. Keith is trying to read, Lance is absently playing a video game next to him, muttering under his breath. 

 

“You sure you don’t want to play? Afraid I’ll beat you?” Lance taunts, but Keith just rolls his eyes, not taking the bait. It makes Lance tease further, which is fine, it keeps everything light and Keith is too tired to do more than add in a statement here and there to urge on more of his ire. 

 

A trade off, a play fight of words. It’s a nice distraction. 

 

Strangely the hum of the game is soothing, and Keith finds himself leaning back and closing his eyes, just sinking into the moment and resting there. 

 

When they snap open, he’s in a pure white space. A void of nothing, just him in royal blue, sitting on the floor, a sword with a silver and sapphire hilt before him. He cannot see the tip of the blade, as if it were pushed into the ground, but all that surrounds is a bright absence, nothing solid. 

 

He looks down, and watches as blood pools at his knees, spreading outwards. He lifts his hands; they are gloveless, covered too, it drips from his fingers, running to his palm and onto his arm. 

 

“It’s okay, my love. It is.” 

 

The voice pulls his attention back, and there, on his lap, is Lance. He looks different, incredibly so that it must be an entirely different person but he  _ knows _ it’s Lance. He feels panic rise, and his hands are there, encircling him, cradling him. He wants to staunch the bleeding, to heal, but unbidden, words fall. 

 

“It’s not, how can you say that? You are not meant to die! I will not let you die!”

 

A cough, and blood trickles from Lance’s mouth, such a familiar scene. 

 

“I don’t think you have a choice. But they cannot take us, they won’t take us. We made sure of that.” 

 

_ A ribbon. A mirror. A cup. A promise.  _

 

Keith lowers his forehead to Lance’s, feels the skin warm but cooling, his essence draining. He lifts up again, and Lance’s eyes are fading, the light gone, but they plead with him to stay caught. 

 

“Remember me. Find me. I’ll come for you, I know I will. So you have to come for me too.” 

 

And Keith feels himself smile despite the fact he’s being torn through. 

 

“I will find you again, even if it takes a thousand lives. I will find you.” 

 

That song fills his ears as Lance’s smile grows, grows then falls as his body goes slack in Keith’s arms. And the blood around him seeps, and the white space rises, until it’s red and white, all blood and emptiness and-

 

Keith wakes up. The song is still clear and he realises with a jolt he’s resting on something hard. Something moving slowly, rising and falling. As his eyes clear and sits up, he realises he’s fallen asleep on Lance’s shoulder. Lance, who stops humming the moment he straightens. 

 

They are close. So very close. Legs still touching, and Keith can see Lance breathing. That is so overwhelmingly good he finds himself dropping his head back down to Lance’s shoulder, resting his forehead there. Lance is still silent, and doesn’t move as Keith sits up again. 

 

An urge flies through him as he watches Lance watch him, face uncharacteristically blank, ball in his court. Keith inhales once. 

 

“I want...can I kiss you?” 

 

He feels childish, the words tripping over one another to reach their destination. A quirk of a smile appears on Lance’s face. 

 

“You can,” he says but Keith wonders for a minute if he can, if he can actually do what he’s requested. 

 

But it’s not in him to back down, so tries anyway. 

 

They meet, just a small caress, no fireworks or worlds ending. But something sparks like bottled lightning and Keith  _ knows _ this. He knows their patterns, the shifts and the way Lance fits with him, remembers the way Lance will kiss back before he does. It’s a homecoming, a realisation and it’s everything he’s been missing and everything he’s been working towards for so long. 

 

To find Lance. To reunite. 

 

They break away, and Lance smiles, wide and new, so new in this world but one Keith knows like his own breath. 

 

“Took you long enough, Mullet.” 

 

And Keith laughs, dry and breaking but free and relieved. He rests his forehead against Lance’s, adds a fleeting kiss to his lips on the way. 

 

“Not a thousand lives though.” 

 

Lance huffs. “No, not a thousand. But more than one is too long.” 

 

Keith nods, agreeing. They breathe the same air for a second before Lance starts humming again. Keith moves away but only so they can tangle up together, rests his head on Lance’s chest as they stretch out on the sofa, feeling his breath rise and fall, the vibration of the song. And then Keith joins in, follows the tune, his voice melding with Lance’s own.

 

They are together, at last. Even if it took a few lives to get here. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still taking prompts, so feel free to send them to me on here, on [Tumblr](http://enlacinglineswrites.tumblr.com) or [Twitter.](http://www.twitter.com/EnlacingL/)


End file.
